The Substitute
by Mint-Fizz
Summary: The universe always seeks to right itself. An ordinary girl is ripped into Gotham after an experiment gone terribly wrong. The Joker is an agent of chaos, but even he sometimes must bow to to will of the universe.
1. Chapter 1

**Authors note: Yes, another Joker/OC, but with a twist. Please be forgiving, I'm new to this whole writing gig. Enjoy.**

_I'm not supposed to be here. Those were the words that kept running through my head constantly after being here for, what was it, 3 days, 4 days?_

_I'm still chained to the radiator. My wrists are raw from trying to wriggle out of my bonds, and now having time to stew over my situation my spirit just isn't in trying to escape any more. At least right now while the room is quiet save for the quiet buzzing of the lamp. After my brain is filled with his incessant cackling once again I may get a second wind. I try desperately to remember how the stories in my old comics went, if they even apply anymore in this messed up situation. Any hint of how to keep myself alive could be in those old stories. _

_He invaded my world first. And I thought I was helping him, helping the balance of the universe as a whole. I never imagined I would end up seemingly destroying my own life in the process. I'm a scientist, damn it. I can find my way back and make sure things are actually set right again. I never would have sent him back knowing what he had planned. I'm not even sure **he** knew what he had planned until the moment I got the machine working again._

_The night the damned Joker fell out of the gate in my lab I should have just ran. Ran because my sanity had failed. Ran because a murderous fictional character was suddenly out of the movie and in my lab. Ran because I was a fool for messing with the experiment in the first place. Dimensional rifts are just a theory, a fools pursuit. That night I think my fear was trumped by the fact that my ego had won. My experiment had obviously been successful. _

_I know he did not kill me that night because he needed to get back. I never should have helped him. I thought I was righting a wrong I had caused in messing with dimensions in the first place. Get him back to his world. Get him back to his Gotham with his Batman and his Commissioner. And pray that none of the other Joker's were going to pop out of the gate when I cranked the machine up again. The last thing I needed was a Jack Nicholson look-a-like running around with my scarred friend. Well, none did. But apparently the Joker liked the time he spent with me in those two days, because as the gate opened once again, he stuck a knife in my arm and dragged me through with him. And now I'm stuck in Gotham chained to a radiator.. _

_I hear footsteps. I keep my eyes to the floor but my head is wrenched up by the chin. His sneering face looks down at me with it's twisted grin._

"Miss me? Don't look at me like that..you should be happy to see me!"

_All I could do was just stare. His face is inches from my own and I can feel the stale breath wisping down on my face._

"Say you're happy to see your puddin'"

_What did he just say? My mind is reeling but I choke on the words. He suddenly grabs a handful of my hair and wrenches me up so I am nose to nose with him. _

"Say it!" "I-I'm happy to see you." "Happy to see who?" "My p-puddin"

_He grins once more and I'm finally dropped to the floor. My bones creaking with the effort._

_Something about his words make me shudder and I'm not sure why. If I could only remember, maybe I could find out why I'm here._


	2. Chapter 2

**Thank you for the reviews and constructive criticism. I really appreciate all of it. The action will pick up in the next chapter and we finally start getting to the fun part. :-)**

"Do you know why I brought you here?"

_I look up again into the marred visage, sickened and confused._ "No."

_He suddenly grabs the chains connecting me to the dirty radiator and starts fumbling with the lock. I know better than to try to escape or injure him while he is towering above me. _

_I know what he is capable of, or at least I thought I did. As he twitches and jolts the lock with the key he has procured from one of the many dirty pockets in his vest, I slip into my thoughts once again. If I could only find out what he wanted, then I could be free. Criminals always wanted some sort of toxin developed or killing-machine prototype. Hell, he had experienced the power of the machine that caused this mess in the first place. That had to be it. The only thing left to do was try to give him what he wanted __**and**__ manage to stay alive long enough to get out of here._

_It was imperative that I got my facts straight. This Gotham and this Joker were different from their countless fictional incarnations in my world. This Joker could very well have been named Jack Napier, but I could not use that as any sort of trump card unless I was sure. This Joker obviously had not been dunked in a vat of toxic waste. This Joker was…screaming in my face.._"Pay attention!!" _His hand was now enclosed around my throat and squeezing. I sputtered and wheezed. My eyes feel as though they might pop out from their sockets. _"It would do you well not to drift off when I'm trying to tell you a-uh story here, missy." _He finally lets go and I sag to the floor. _

_Keep my daydreaming to when he isn't in the room with me. First lesson learned._

"I-I'm sorry.."

_The glare he sent my way made my stomach flip. The slow grin that immediately followed worried me even more. I flinch as I see his arms rush me and I am suddenly being picked up and carried to the mattress on the other side of the room. And as soon as I realize that I am airborne, I'm plopped unceremoniously on the shapeless mass of springs and fabric._

"Now-uh..as I was saying…" _He was pacing now, gesturing to me with his hands and occasionally twitching his tongue out to the corner of his mouth. _"Before you cranked up your little machine, I was on my way to Arkham Asylum. Mmm-hmm. They were going to lock me up for a very, very long time. Batsy thought he could send me to get my head shrinked and that would somehow mean he was free of me. Trying to take all the fun out of everything as always. But as luck would have it, you did….uh…whatever it was that you did, and right as they were signing me in to their little nuthouse I saw a flash and then was in you're a-dorable little lab." _I flinch as he reaches down, only to be rewarded with a painful pinch on the cheek. I feel the beginnings of tears prick the corners of my eyes.._ "I helped you to get back..I-I…I wanted to set things right for you.."

_He raises an eyebrow at my admittedly pathetic attempt to gain his sympathy._ "No, no, no, I know what you were trying to do. You felt guilty I killed your little janitor after you let me out of that room and you wanted to get rid of me. So proud your little experiment had worked you couldn't stand to only look at me behind the glass. So curious to see what sort of boogeyman popped out of your creation."

_Tears were trailing down my face now. Poor Osborne. The old janitor at the lab had worked there since before I even entered the university. I had been foolish enough to think I could let the Joker out of the containment room in order to…and he was right…get a better look at him. I still would not admit to myself that had my captor not gotten a hold of one of my dissection scalpels within the first 40 minutes of his arrival, I might not have been so eager to send him back. It was my fault. All of this was my fault. _

"I can be a generous guy, sweetie. And since you saved me from that nightmare of an asylum I decided to return the favor!"

"R-return the favor?" _What is he even talking about?_

_His grin breaks and then widens, like a shark smelling blood._ "You looked like you needed-uh- a little fun in your life."


	3. Chapter 3

_This could not be good. Not at all. I had a pretty clear view of what his idea of fun entailed a majority of the time._

"F-fun?"

_His grin remained, swimming before my eyes. _"Ya see, doll, you presented me with an opportunity. My own experiment if you like. I was, ah, about to get locked in the nuthouse..and you were already in one."

_This isn't right.._

"Shake your pretty little head all you want. You sat there in your lab tinkering with space and time or whatever day after day after day. Now either someone's got a complex or there was something deeper going on. Sounds like someone was uh-unsatisfied with their current situation. And after we had our enjoyable little chats, you seemed like you knew so much about the old Joker, here. I was so pleased to have a fan."

"You d-don't know what you're..."

_My hair is grabbed from above and my already sore scalp screams in pain._ "I know exactly what I'm talking about you ungrateful brat! Your parents did a horrible job of teaching you your manners." _He makes a tsk tsk sound and grabs the hair tighter in his fist. My concentration is on the burning pain at the top of my head. I don't notice his other hand reach out and grab my throat until it's too late. Being dragged by the throat is an interesting sensation, pain mixed with grogginess. The throat constriction and exhaustion was creating an almost drunken sensation. I'm standing now, wobbling woozily under his hand, the grip the only thing keeping me upright. Suddenly pain blasts through the left side of my face and then the same on the right as my head hits the wall. Everything is fading. _"You take some time and think about why rudeness will not be tolerated, missy."

_I awaken. Oh, ..and chained to the radiator once again. The first thing noticed is the intense throbbing emanating from my skull. Thump, thump, thump.._

_The next sensation comes from my stomach. How many hours or, damn it, days have I been out? I have not eaten. I don't bother stopping the tears. There has been no noise in minutes, or is that days? Time holds no meaning anymore. I'm going to die here. I am going to die. Hell, maybe I'm already dead? That actually makes more sense than anything else that has happened so far. I'm either dreaming or I'm dead and I'm in hell. A strangled chuckle bubbles up in my throat, only to be cut short by the piercing pain that rips through my head. Why didn't I think of this before? My research and all the time in my lab had obviously seeped their way into my unconscious. Lucid dreaming. I had read about that before and it certainly made more sense than some damned fictional character jumping in and out of dimensions. Yes, that's it. If I was dreaming it meant that this horrid pain all over wasn't real. Oswald wasn't really dead. I just had to ride this out until I woke up. Go with the flow. My skull thumped again and my back roared in pain. No, no. I have hope now. I could at least wake up, couldn't I? I start to laugh and sob until the pain overtakes me once more._

_I'm wrapped in pajamas and my mother is waking me up for school. I thump down the hall. So tired_. "Time for your shower, sweetie." _My eyes open lazily. I'm in the bathroom._

_I look blearily around. A bathroom, but no happy frog rug or shower curtain like I was expecting...hoping. A flash of purple sweeps in front of me and I'm hit with a blast of cold water. _"Wakey, wakey." _The Joker's face is within inches of my own, smirking. My head has stopped throbbing as much. The water has finally warmed and feels good against my skin...my skin?! I look down in horror and immediately back up into amused eyes._"Don't get much sun, do ya?"


End file.
